A NIGHT IN A HAUNTED CHURCH

 

A NIGHT IN A HAUNTED CHURCH
BY
BARRY VAN-ASTEN

 

 

Most people would be pretty daunted by the prospect of spending a night in a haunted church, whether they believe in ghosts or not. There is always that possibility that everything one comes to believe as being ‘real’, of the firm beliefs of existence and material things, can be turned upon its head. It is simply easier to leave some things well alone and be content with one’s perception of reality, false or otherwise, than to disrupt one’s whole grasp upon our earthly existence. Then there are those who wish to go beyond the mere façade of reality and know the truth of the hereafter, of life after death and the possibility of a ‘spiritual’ existence. I have always been of the latter category and my search has proved to me, without wishing to persuade others, that there certainly are such things as ghosts and ‘things that go bump in the night’. So I was hardly looking for further evidence nor was I treating the matter lightly, I was merely curious, as indeed, one should be.

 

There is a long, curved trackway across farmland on the approach to the church and the sheep seem to gather along the way as if to bleet – “go back, go back”. On the left side is the embankment and brick arches of the dismantled North Western Railway line which used to run from Weedon to Leamington Spa via Daventry which closed in 1958.

 

Crossing the rather disappointing trickle of the River Leam the church loomed forth like some ominous stone monster, ancient and a bit doddery, a little like one’s Uncle Wilfred whom nobody likes to talk about because there have been rumours of foul things and skeletons in familial cupboards; old, perhaps a little forgetful, but still very intelligent and capable and knowing that one is approaching. I remember saying something about ‘Castle Dracula’ and that sudden feeling of menace one gets in these sorts of situations – what have I got myself into? On the right of the track as one approaches the church can be seen the mounds, furrows and earthworks of the old medieval village which was abandoned around 1500.

 

The church of St. Peters of Wolfhampcote, straddles the Warwickshire-Northamptonshire border, a remnant from the past that has witnessed the plague and the disappearance of the medieval village that formed its parish, the civil war and the destruction by idle soldiers casually chipping at stone statues and effigies, to twentieth-century vandalism and desecration (in 1952 two Coventry men broke in and stole the church bell from the tower; the bell was later found in a ditch at Berkswell in November that year). The church has seen it all yet still stands, quite alone and abandoned except for the casual visitor or foolhardy inquisitive person like myself who wishes to spend the night there.

To walk around a church at night in the darkness and try to sleep there has always been something I’ve wanted to do since I was a young boy; churches fascinate me, the stone fabric of the building, the carvings, the polished wood and brass and the sweet scent which hangs in the air, the monuments (I just have to touch the faces on those beautiful cold tomb effigies if not out of necessity then out of politeness) and wall tablets recalling a life and a death lived a long time ago, just like me – would I be remembered two or three hundred years hence?

 

On arrival at the church around 4.30 in the afternoon there was some difficulty locating the key and accessing the church as we had been given the wrong code; a phone signal, like the prayers of the past within the church, was a distant memory. I might add that there is no electricity or running water inside the church and the toilet is a compost toilet in a small locked shed outside. It seemed as if we were not meant to enter the church, prevented by some ‘unseen’ hand until eventually, almost like a miracle, the box opened (with the wrong code entered) and the key was revealed like the Holy Grail! (I had even resigned myself to sleeping outside somehow, finding some sort of shelter) I hasten to add that while this farce of finding the key was acted out I had the distinct notion that the ’presence’ who dwelt inside knew exactly that we were there and was probably finding it rather funny that we could not enter, in fact, clasping his hands with glee. It must have been a great disappointment to him when we did at long last open the wooden door, but we did greet the empty church accordingly with a friendly ‘hello’.

 

On entering the church one’s eyes are met with the sparse interior, a kettle and a single ring camp stove was a welcome sight and so were the jars of tea and sugar and tins of coffee and hot chocolate, placed rather macabre upon a wooden coffin bier, the sort of funereal furniture one would expect to see in The Addams Family with Uncle Fester pouring some foaming and bubbling concoction into glasses from. There are still some interesting features of the church remaining such as the Norman font and the old wooden wheel of the larger bell fixed to the wall; the arches resting on octagonal pillars with rounded capitals and the wooden screen (14^th cent.) with its pillars intersecting round arches with trefoil tracery. The north chapel has some fine memorials to the Clerke and Tibbits families above the more modern stone altar. Two carved heads (their noses missing, perhaps hacked off in the civil war) stand facing each other on the chancel arch and there is also the 17^th century carved sanctuary rails and communion table. Several tombstones line the stone floor of the choir commemorating the Raynsford family. The pulpit is hexagonal with an inlaid design, probably late 18^th century. Above the chancel arch is the Royal coat of arms of Queen Anne. Some of the 14-15^th century oak benches still survive along with the parish chest. The south chancel wall has two mullion windows without tracery, one dates to the 15^th century and the other is a 19^th century copy; between these windows is the door through which one enters (the main doors in the porch are locked). The south aisle windows have some interesting 14^th century tracery.

 

Following a fine dinner at the Admiral Nelson pub and a walk along the canal back to the church where a lone bat was seen by my partner, we approached the dark dimensions of the church to the sound of owls hooting in the night. It was cold and dark inside, the sort of place little Eddie Munster would call ‘home’, and I shrugged off the sinister feeling, although it was much more present in the darkness than it was in daylight. The church was in complete darkness except for our sleeping area near the altar in the north aisle, which glowed with imitation battery-operated candles and small fairy lights. Tea and coffee was prepared and we sat down to drink it. I don’t know what possessed me but I suggested we both keep silent for a while and listen to the empty church, which we did. Suddenly, with a sense of real menace, we both heard the sound of footsteps at the other (west) end of the church where it was total darkness, there where the belfy is located. It was just a few footsteps but definite and purposeful, as if they were meant to be heard. We looked at each other and heard them again, in the same area. We both got the same impression that the maker of the footsteps was a dutiful and loyal priest of the Georgian era wearing his black gown and an old-fashioned white clerical neck-tie. My partner, who has pronounced mediumistic abilities, felt a cool breeze upon her face and saw a woman in a distressed state; she had appeared, as if triggered by my partner’s sensitivity in seeing such apparitions, to show herself. She was a woman of the long-vanished village who had lost a child and wept. She did not stay long. Sitting there, I decided to read aloud the guide to the church and its historical significance and felt the gentleman spirit listening to my every word intently, perhaps recalling a name or two from a distinguished family member.

 

It was just before eleven o’clock when I went and sat outside with my companion, listening to the hoot of an owl and the bleeting of sheep as we discussed the footsteps we had both distinctly heard. There was a sense of dread in my heart at the thought of going back inside and going to sleep there, sleep being that most vulnerable state, like putting one’s head in a noose, and waiting… I remembered the time when like now, I and my fellow investigator sat outside the haunted Borley Church and we both heard the sound of a wooden broom fall and hit a tiled floor inside the locked church. That was surely a sign from the ghostly inhabitants of that church to let us know that they were aware of our presence and that we were not welcome inside the church, locked or unlocked. Or when we camped opposite Crowley’s infamous Boleskine House near Loch Ness and wandering through the little graveyard there we encountered something menacing and definitely evil in the small, tomb-like, ‘grave-watchers’ building, thankfully contained within! I had the same feeling now, as if the presence inside didn’t want us to be there, that it was protecting the building and only tolerated visitors who were respectful of its sacred walls. There in the darkness the church seemed to be alive, to breathe and know my thoughts and my fear…

 

Attached to the outside of the church on the east wall is the Hood mausoleum – Lady Hood had the family vault erected in 1848 for her husband, Samuel Tibbits Hood’s remains. The chancel was enlarged to accommodate it and a new east window of the Victorian Gothic style was built. It is said that the poet John Betjeman came and examined the mausoleum in the nineteen sixties or thereabouts, perhaps stumbling upon the vault accidentally. But in the depths of darkness when it is quiet enough to hear a heart beating next to you, the mausoleum is no laughing matter. There is such a long history here, a thousand years of living and dying – the church was in the hands of Geoffrey Langley in 1248 who appointed a priest to the living there; ownership passed by marriage from the Langleys to the Peyto family in 1334 in which family it remained for nearly three-hundred years, until 1614 when it was bought by their tenant, Robert Clerke. After Henry VIII closed the monasteries the church became crown property. In 1585 it was granted to Christopher Hatton and then in 1596 to Thomas Spenser. It was kept by the Raynsfords through the 17-18^th century until it was bought by Richard Tibbits in 1794. The church became part of the manor estate in 1826 when the manor was acquired by Charles Tibbits.

 

Back inside the church I got into my sleeping bag and tried to settle as my partner was busy taking photographs in the darkness. It was around one o’clock in the morning when my partner had to leave the church and closed the door behind, leaving me alone. Then the priestly footsteps began once more, from the belfy and slowly they were making their way towards me; I heard them approaching and felt such a feeling of dread. Before I knew it the resident ghost was standing behind me, I had my back to him as I lay there; I didn’t need to and didn’t want to look round to see him, I knew he was there, just as if he had been a living person standing there, one instinctively knows when a presence, alive or dead, is standing next to you. I had gone to the church with the intention of investigating the haunted claims like Mulder and Scully, but instead I cowered beneath the sheet like Shaggy and Scooby Doo! Somehow, the idea of an investigation seemed disrespectful. Then, when the door opened again and my partner came inside, the ghostly presence retreated back to the darkness of the bell tower.

 

Surely there is some clause in the ‘Phantoms, Spooks and Spectre’s Handbook’ [paragraph I: ‘Principles of Phantomry’, section II: ‘Hauntings’: Do’s and Don’ts] which spirits have to abide by, I mean, I’m assuming that ‘spirits’ have some sort of rules, codes of conduct and regulations to follow and laws which they must not break, otherwise the ‘shadow people’ will come for them and take them away, perhaps to some lowly church in the middle of no-where… One certainly would not like Great Aunt Maud popping-up in the middle of a tender and affectionate moment between two lovers demanding the whereabouts of her lost false teeth!

Talking of ‘Shadow People’ – I wonder why they always seem to be hiding from the living yet make a definite effort to show themselves looking around corners or peering from doorways? I would have thought that a non-corporeal form would have no need to ‘physically’ look at someone or even to walk when they can travel as astral forms of light or appear, Captain Kirk-like, as if transported from one place to the other. And why the sound of footsteps; do ghosts feel the need to wear shoes? I can only presume it is a form of intimidation to create fear, which certain spirits seem to need like we consume food. If Shadow People are inter-dimensional beings preying on the living, draining their energy like a vampire drains blood, then how can one fight such a thing? It seems some ‘spirits’ are able to interact with the living and cause scratches, bruising and even throw a person downstairs but the opposite is not achievable, or at least I have never heard of a ghost being punched in the face by a living person.

 

It may have been an hour or two later when I was disturbed from what cannot be called sleep but a sort of numb emptiness masquerading as sleep, and I felt hands upon me pulling the bed sheet from me. It was all done very slowly and dramatically and I shouted out very loud and turned to my partner, asking if they had touched me or pushed me – ‘no’ was the answer and I closed my eyes and awaited the dawn and the safety of daylight.

 

The next morning, Easter Monday which happened to be my birthday, I awoke with a feeling of some small achievement at having survived the experience. Perhaps I am being overly dramatic and some people would say ‘of course I would sleep in a haunted church’ in the cold light of day, but at night when the veil is thin and every sound is magnified… Of course it all seemed fairly innocuous in the daylight with the sound of rain hammering upon the roof. The tea and coffee once more made and the division between night and day made more complete. The bees were again busy outside arriving and departing from their little holes in the outside walls of the church, just as they had been upon our arrival the day before. I saw the supposedly coffin-sized child’s stone now part of the west wall of the porch where the wooden door seems reluctant to meet each other and a large gap let’s one see inside towards the belfry… perhaps the resident ghost likes to walk this way and peer out into the sunshine beyond the confines of his ecclesiastic rest… I wonder if he knew anything of the approaching death that day in Rome of Pope Francis?

 

The church seemed less imposing in the light of day with the raindrops dripping from its stonework. Leaving it (after we each privately said a few words of thanks to the ghost for allowing us to stay the night) we took a final glance at it and at the ruins of the brick tithe barn west of the church across the field where the old vicarage once stood; we followed the track back to the Grand Union canal and onto the bridge further on, which links with the Jurassic Way footpath. Ascending wet lanes and tracks towards Ashby St. Ledgers we stopped and listened to a skylark in a field and delighted at the small copse of bluebells. Time seemed to stand still but upon entering the village we were met with all the modern disturbances of life… I celebrated with a lovely birthday lunch at The Olde Coach House – not once but twice the lights flickered and turned off as we sat there and I couldn’t help wondering had we gained an attachment from the church? It wouldn’t be the first time we had brought ‘something’ home with us, in one instance, something very malicious which took a medium to eradicate from the house. We hoped for the best and the night before seemed like a distant memory. Before leaving, we looked at the Manor House which is linked to the Gunpowder Plot of 1605.

 

If you are going to the church expecting some spooky entertainment from the likes of some Rentaghost-like Mister Claypole or Ghosts of Motley Hall, jovial Bodkin, then you will be sadly disappointed; but if you are of a sensitive nature and able to discern the gentle disturbances of the space, you may wish you had chosen to stay home that night and do something less strenuous, or perhaps visit Uncle Wilfred (whom nobody talks about!)

 

I have been asked if I would do it again – perhaps, but I had fulfilled a long desired wish and slept one night in a haunted church.